Proactive Value
Helping protect a brand, align registrations with the business today, and discourage others from adopting confusingly similar names.
Attorney-Led Brand Protection Review
Trademark Checkup
A focused trademark review for winery owners, beverage companies, entrepreneurs, established businesses, and other brand owners who want to understand how their current trademark protection aligns with the business they operate today.
Performed by an experienced trademark attorney and trial lawyer who understands trademark registration, trademark litigation, and the practical realities of building, owning, and defending valuable brands.
Request a Trademark CheckupWhy Consider a Checkup?
Long-term use does not automatically protect your brand.
Some business owners think, “I have been selling under this name for years and have never had a problem. Why do I need a trademark?” Years of use can create important trademark rights, but long-term use alone does not necessarily provide the same protection and advantages as a properly structured federal trademark portfolio.
Businesses also evolve. A name, logo, label, slogan, product line, or other branding may have changed since the original trademark was filed. Even relatively small changes should be reviewed. If a trademark has changed materially, an existing registration may no longer fully reflect the mark being used today, and a new trademark application may be advisable or necessary.
A Trademark Checkup looks at the brands you are actually using today—not simply the registrations you obtained years ago.
Defensive Value
Strengthening a business’s position if another company later challenges its right to use a name, logo, product brand, or other trademark.
What We Review
A focused review shaped around your business.
Depending on the business, its portfolio, and the scope of the engagement, a Trademark Checkup may include review of the following areas.
Registrations & Applications
Existing federal trademark registrations, pending applications, and whether current filings appropriately cover the company’s products and services.
Ownership & Entity Alignment
Trademark ownership and whether registrations appear to be held by the appropriate business entity, including changes that may have occurred over time.
Brands & Trademarks in Current Use
Company and winery names, product names, wine and beverage brands, logos, labels, slogans, vineyard names, and other potentially protectable trademarks—including marks currently being used that have never been federally registered.
Changes to Existing Trademarks
Changes to names, logos, labels, slogans, products, or other branding since earlier trademark filings, and whether existing registrations still accurately reflect the trademarks being used today.
Maintenance & Proper Use
Upcoming maintenance and renewal requirements, along with the company’s use of the ™ and ® symbols.
Portfolio Gaps & Opportunities
Potential gaps in protection, new brands or products that may warrant additional filings, and practical recommendations for keeping trademark protection aligned with the business as it grows.
Prior Use, Fair Use & Dispute Issues
Potential issues involving prior use, trademark fair use, nominative fair use, likelihood of confusion, and the historical evidence available to establish when and how a trademark has been used.
Industry Focus
Trademark Checkups for Wineries & Beverage Brands
Wineries and beverage companies often build multiple valuable brands over time. These may include the winery or company name, individual wine or beverage brands, labels, vineyard names, logos, slogans, tasting-room branding, merchandise, and new product lines.
As those businesses grow, their trademark portfolios do not always grow with them. A Trademark Checkup can help determine whether the trademarks being used today are adequately reflected in the company’s existing trademark protection.
Machat & Associates understands that winery trademarks, wine brand trademarks, and beverage trademarks are not merely legal registrations. They can represent substantial investments in reputation, distribution, marketing, customer recognition, and goodwill.
Explore Beverage, Wine & Spirits Law →Why Machat & Associates?
Trademark registration experience informed by decades of litigation and trial experience.
Trademark experience beyond filing applications.
Many trademark practices focus primarily on searching, filing, and prosecuting trademark applications. Michael Machat also brings decades of litigation and trial experience, including trademark litigation, federal court proceedings, trademark jury trials, appellate litigation, and a unanimous victory before the United States Supreme Court.
That experience provides an important perspective when conducting a Trademark Checkup. Trademark protection is not only about whether a registration exists. Questions involving prior use, fair use, likelihood of confusion, historical evidence, and the actual scope of trademark rights can become critical if a brand is ever challenged or needs to be enforced.
Michael Machat also brings the perspective of a brand owner. He has built, marketed, and protected his own wine and spirits brands and understands the investment, reputation, distribution, marketing, customer recognition, and goodwill that can exist behind a trademark.
This combination of trademark registration, litigation, trial, and firsthand brand-building experience allows Machat & Associates to evaluate a trademark portfolio from both the legal and practical business perspectives.
Explore Trademark Law & Litigation →Experience That Informs the Review
Trademark issues seen from the courtroom, not just the filing desk.
A Trademark Checkup can benefit from understanding how trademark issues actually develop in litigation. Michael Machat’s experience includes cases involving trademark fair use, nominative fair use, prior use, infringement, and jury trials.
Trademark Fair Use — U.S. Supreme Court
In KP Permanent Make-Up v. Lasting Impression, Michael Machat took a trademark fair-use dispute to the United States Supreme Court and obtained a unanimous 9–0 decision establishing an important precedent concerning the fair-use defense to trademark infringement.
Read about KP Permanent Make-Up →Nominative Fair Use — World Axe Throwing League
In World Axe Throwing League v. Cold Steel, Machat & Associates successfully opposed summary judgment involving nominative fair use and proceeded to a jury trial and verdict.
Read about World Axe Throwing League →Prior Use — REAL CALLER
In Talent Mobile Development, Inc. v. Headios Group, one of the central trademark issues was determining who was the prior user of the REAL CALLER mark. When conventional historical records were difficult to obtain, evidence of earlier trademark use was established through the Wayback Machine and other indirect evidence.
Read about REAL CALLER →Your business changes. Your trademark protection should keep up.
A trademark portfolio created years ago may not fully protect the business you operate today. New products, redesigned logos or labels, modified brand names, new slogans, expanded services, new markets, or valuable unregistered brands can all create reasons to revisit existing protection.
The goal of a Trademark Checkup is to identify those issues before they become a problem and provide practical recommendations for strengthening the protection around the brands your business relies on today.
Initial Assessment
Request a Trademark Checkup
Tell us about the brand or trademark portfolio you would like reviewed. This short inquiry helps Machat & Associates understand the business and the initial scope of your request.
Thank you.
Your Trademark Checkup request has been received. Machat & Associates will review your inquiry and contact you regarding next steps.
Submitting this form does not create an attorney-client relationship. Please do not submit confidential or sensitive information. An attorney-client relationship is established only after Machat & Associates, P.A. confirms that it can represent you and a written engagement agreement has been executed.